rain

Today's excursion was a double fail. Worst attempt yet.

Mariela and I wanted to go see the reclining Buddha today at Wat Pho. I had looked up which buses we could take, and there was one - 512 - whose route stopped not too far from our street.

We took a free bus up the road and spend some time figuring out which direction bus 512 would come from. We walked around for 15 minutes in the sun. We climbed some stairs to get a better view of the traffic situation. 512 was nowhere in sight.

Reclining Buddha = 0%.

Luckily, I had read about another temple nearby, notable for its forested meditation area. It was between Siam and Centralworld, so we were able to take the skywalk and stay above the crowded sidewalks.

When we got there, it started drizzling. No matter - we had umbrellas. But little rainstorms quickly turn into downpours here, and we had just started walking around the temple's grounds when the sky opened up.

We decided to wait it out in the dry, air-conditioned Siam Paragon mall.

Several hours later, tired and ready to go home, we ventured back out to the skywalk. (Other random temple = 0%.) Down below, the streets had turned into rivers! We watched a poor pedestrian wading through ankle-deep water as he crossed between two sidewalks.

We had planned to take a bus home, but after seeing the water level, we didn't want to wade through the street to board.

Walking wasn't much better, though, as we had to make multiple crossings through cold, dirty, gray water that reached as high as our calves.

Even worse, heavy rain forces cockroaches out of their hiding places, giving you yet another thing to try and avoid.